Mental Poverty: Break It!

Poverty according to Positive Point Of View: Poverty is the state of being inadequate or having a lack of. Poverty is often found synonymous with the words poor, debt, hardship, and emptiness. It is safe to say mental poverty is the state of having an unhealthy and poor frame of mind.

This post is me not being a know-it- all. This is simply me sharing my two-cents of the matter.

For everyone’s information, I live in one of the third world countries. I have witnessed the impact of economic problems in our country. I have seen and heard families have broken apart for the reasons to finding and aiming for greener pasture to provide to their families. I have seen some who suffered in debt and in turn went into illegal activities to sustain their day-to-day living. However, despite these negative effects I have also seen others who have outgrown and outlived these problems. I have also seen and witnessed some who got up, worked hard and became successful and financially free from debt and living in pay check by pay check.

With this awareness, I have realized that poverty specifically mental poverty is in the way we think of things. How we frame our mindset. Thinking that we are always a victim of this poverty and not making solutions to it would not make us survive the problem. Learning to accept the fact that our country is indeed problematic, lacks job opportunities is one way of moving forward. Loving our job and making a good reputation with regards to our credit standing would help us in a lot of ways. What I mean, is that paying our debt on time. Learning new skills to generate another source of income, like learning how to bake pastries and sell them on the side while working. If you have the passion for tutoring kids in Math or English you could have a side hustle as a tutor. And nowadays, if you know anything about the computer like data entry, you could work from home.

There are tons of opportunities if we just learn how to break from mental poverty. We could see lots of possible ways to overcome our financial situations.

How do we break from mental poverty?

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I am no expert on this. This is solely based on experience.

First, is to acknowledge that we do have a problem with the way we think of things. In short, acknowledging that we have mental poverty.

Second, change our mindset. Be optimistic and define what you want to achieve in life. Have a goal, doing so will help you be in line with your plan instead of deviating from it. It is difficult at first, but you have to be firm with your decision. If you are in debt and you really want to get away from that debt. Define when you are going to pay off that debt and what ways are you going to make to reach that goal. Are you going to pay it in 6 or 12 months time? Would you extend more hours on work to earn more to pay that debt? Are you going to do other ways to earn income like tutoring on your free time, writing from home, selling pastries? You know what you can and can’t do. Utilize your strengths and your skills. You can do it!

Third, think ahead of time. Think for your future. Where will you be 30 years from now? What age will you retire? Are you going to get married? Are you going to have children? How many kids would you want? Others may say that thinking ahead of time is not good. But for me, being aware of all these things would give you the idea that you have to earn and to save for the future; for the unforeseeable things that might happen to you or to your loved ones.

Fourth, if you have an emergency fund. Good for you! If you don’t then you might want to start funding one now.

Fifth, invest in health and life insurance. Not because you need it but because you are still young and healthy. Don’t think that because you don’t need it now, you won’t invest on it. Because it’ll be too late when you need it already. There is also a life insurance that has features on inventing on the stock market. You might also want to learn about this.

For me, that is all you need to do in order to break from mental poverty. And of course, taking action and being committed to it. Also, use the internet for a reason. Read blogs, websites that would hep you to understand how to be financially free. But avoid scams. If it’s too good to be true, then it’s too good to be true.

Like I said this is solely based on experience. I am not in debt but I do have problems in saving up for the future. I accept that I had mental poverty and I am taking action to break and overcome it. It was really difficult at first, but it’ll be all worth it. It is also embarrassing but hey! We all have this. No need to be ashamed of.